House Approves ‘Obamacare’ Nullification Bill

Monday

Mar 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

A bill focused on nullifying “Obamacare” has been approved by the Oklahoma House of Representatives by a vote of 72-20.

State Rep. Mike Ritze, a board-certified family practice physician and surgeon – the author of the legislation – filed House Bill 1021 to nullify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” in Oklahoma.

Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, said the measure protects Oklahomans against an unconstitutional federal overreach in power and control over their daily lives.

“There is no provision in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution where the states delegated to Congress the authority to make a citizen purchase health care or pay a fine,” Ritze said. “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is an example of federal overreach and my legislation will authorize the state via the will of the People to ignore it and ban the enforcement of it.”

Proponents of “Obamacare” argue that Article VI of the Constitution makes the legislation the “supreme law of the land.” Ritze strongly disagrees with that belief.

“They fail to understand how the country is supposed to operate,” Ritze said. “As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 33: ‘It expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution.’ Alexander Hamilton got it right. Congress and the Supreme Court got it wrong.

“When the federal government exceeds its delegated authority, as it has done with the passage of Obamacare, it is the duty of every state representative to defend the unalienable rights of the people of the great State of Oklahoma. I and others in the House and Senate intend to do just that with this legislation.”